Singer/composer, area high school students to perform Feb. 10 at Ripon College

Singer/composer Moira Smiley will perform Saturday, Feb. 10, at Ripon College as part of the Chamber Music and Jazz at Ripon Series. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in First Congregational Church, 220 Ransom St., Ripon. Ticket information is available by calling 920-748-8791.

She also will participate in the fourth annual Ripon College Choral Festival. The finale of the festival will open the concert. Select students from Ripon High School, Green Lake High School, Wisconsin Dells High School, Waupun High School and Tri-County Area Schools will combine to form a choir. The Ripon College Chamber Singers also will participate.

The students will perform four pieces written by Smiley, with Smiley leading a workshop on her pieces in the afternoon.

The second half of the concert will feature Smiley performing as a soloist, as she sings, plays various instruments, and incorporates body percussion.

Smiley’s spare, vocally driven compositions of warped traditional songs, original polyphony and body percussion have been heard on feature films, BBC and PBS television programs, NPR, and more than 60 albums. She creates and performs new works for voices.

The Los Angeles-based artist leads her own group, moira smiley & VOCO, as well as travels the world as a soloist in new, early and traditional music and creates new work for dance, theatre and film. Recent engagements include TED, the London Proms Festival, and features on BBC3’s “The Choir” and ABC Australia’s Books & Arts programs.

Smiley has been musical director for Shakespeare Santa Cruz and renowned dance-theater productions. In 2002, she won the Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship for Medieval Music, given by the Sequentia Ensemble, and recorded Disc three of the Complete Hildegard Works with Sinfonye (Celestial Harmonies).